Hello forum members

OK my mom has this stupid Gateway and it's been nothing but trouble.

It has recently been freezing up and Blue screening. Unfortunetly I am not there to ever see the blue screen. It also frequently shuts off and reboots without reason.

The fatal error message I get when it asks to send a report is:
C:\DOCUME~1\Terri\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER7800.dir00\mimni052507-01.dmp

C:\DOCUME~1\Terri\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER7800.dir00\sysdata.xml

She's running Norton 2007.

I'm thinking either a virus or for some strange belief I'm thinking maybe a video card error. I think I might have read something about that.

Help me please

My mother always said there were no stupid questions, only really stupid people – It took me a long time to figure out she was talking about me.

I don't think there is any real reason to suppose this is a virus or the video card, although anything is possible.

The most usual reason for spontaneous reboots is overheating. If the motherboard has sensors one of these freebies should give you the readings:

EVEREST
or it's predecessor:-
AIDA32

There might be a build up of dust so it could be worth cleaning all the fans, case vents and the CPU heat sink.

While you are in there clean the edge connectors of the RAM and video card with a pencil eraser because tarnish on either of these can play tricks.

DerekW

As well, rebooting may be by design (on 'serious' errors), but that behaviour can be altered - - you may also wish to examine the Event Viewer

You might consider clearing out junk files etc. with CCleaner, but the locations posted relate to the error report, not the actual problem itself

Virus is often suspected, but that is not always the case

I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter.

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

I don't think its a Gateway issue. More than likely its software related. Computers are not stupid they do what the programmer programs them to do. They have no mind. Without the programmer there is nothing.

She's running Norton 2007.

That could be the issue get a better AV program.

What do i put here if i don't put a question?

Thanks for the replies. I used the programs mentioned above and updated all firmware. I also fixed and/or deleted 286 registry errors.

After all this I also discovered that Nvidia was the default display adapter driver although I had removed that card many eons ago.

So I went ahead and deleted that driver and when I went to install the XP default VGA adapter driver Nvidia continued to try and upload itself as the default driver. It took a while but I finaly got the XP default to load up.

Strange thing is that if you reboot I still get an file system consistency error on boot up. It only ocurs on reboot and not standard boot from off position.

CHKDSK
You're right that computers have no mind and that it's the programers who are stupid at Gateway. Thanks for making that clear. I'm glad you said it so I didn't have to.

This Gateway computer has been nothing but trouble!

Anyway I appreciate all the help and if anything else happens I'll be sure to post in the right category because now I agree this wasn't a virus.

My mother always said there were no stupid questions, only really stupid people – It took me a long time to figure out she was talking about me.